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Thabena sp.
I think that this Issid Hopper looks like Hysteropterum reticulatum (Herrich-Schäffer, 1835), but my photo is very poor and the photos I have seen, on inaturalist.org, are not much better. However, there is a bigger problem than poor pictures. H. reticulatum is not present anywhere in Southeast Asia. So, that possible ID is completely wrong.
This Issid Hopper was spotted in our backyard on String Beans (Vigna unguiculata) known in the Philippines as Sitaw. Plant information from - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Sitaw.html
Thanks to arne.roysland, I now have a much better ID for this one - Thabena sp. (see Arne's comment below).
Spotted on Feb 12, 2024
Submitted on Feb 12, 2024
2 Comments
Hi Arne, thank you for your help on this one. You are absolutely right, the answer is in the distribution and the scientific paper in researchgate.net does, indeed include the Philippines. I had actually looked at Thabena in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thabena.... because I had seen something similar, a long time ago before I joined Project Noah and still had some notes I made back then. However, good old Wiki was no help this time it lists 15 species of Thabena and they are all printed in red (which usually means that they don't have any pictures), but right there, on the same page, they show a photo of Thabena brunnifrons which does not look like my hopper. So, I was really confused, but your two links have sorted it out and I am now confident to call this hopper Thabena sp. Thanks again, Arne, for getting me on the right track .
Hi John, I think it is a planthopper of Thabena sp. In this document https://www.researchgate.net/publication... they tell:
The genus Thabena comprises 14 species distributed in continental China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Réunion Island
Pictures: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/481821-...